Natalie will croon parade goers with a few songs as eight couples matched by eHarmony ride the float, and hopefully inspire others to give love, and the website, a chance.

“We picked the couples for special reasons. They have great stories,” said Warren. “They will represent different factors. One couple is over 80 years old.”

The float will also include the first couple, the company knows of, that met on eHarmony and married, all the way from Texas.

“Their greatest dream is they found the love of their life,” said Warren about all the couples, and tying in the 2013 parade theme, “Dreams Come True.”

“I’m interested in matching people for a lifetime,” he adds.

Warren estimates 565,000 marriages have resulted from eHarmony connections since its beginning in 2000.

“We get invited to almost every wedding,” said Warren. “We’ve only attended a few. I cry, I get sentimental when I hear couples’ stories.”

For Warren and the company, the float entry is not only a dream, but a coming home.

Warren had a private therapy practice in Pasadena for 40 years. He and his wife of 54 years, Marilynn, lived in and raised their three daughters in San Marino and Pasadena for more than two decades.

The Crown City was also the first home to the online dating site before relocating to the beaches of Santa Monica.

“We love Pasadena,” said Warren. “This is a very special Rose Parade and it’s a special time for us.”

“It’s terribly exciting (to be in the parade),” said Marilynn Warren, who also works in the company. “eHarmony is for everyone. To find someone that’s a match — we hope that is inspiring.”

Warren was a professor and then dean of Fuller Theological Seminary’s Graduate School of Psychology for years. His road to helping people was paved long ago. He originally went into ministry to help people, but found his true calling in another direction.

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“It was natural for me to go into psychology,” he said.

Warren found himself helping more couples. He researched and wrote several articles and books on relationships and finding the right partner.

“If you want to marry someone for a lifetime, you have to have respect for them, find someone whose character you admire, trust, be stimulated by them intellectually,” said Warren.

Warren said one of the keys to happiness is choosing the right person to marry.

“You get that wrong, it’s a mess,” he said. “You get that right, it’s heaven.”

Warren draws on his own marriage and that of his parents who were married for 70 years.

“I felt so good about myself around (Marilynn,)” he recalls of meeting his wife. “That’s the secret.”

His father even remarried in his 90s with Warren’s encouragement about a year after his mother died.

Warren retired from the company in 2007 and with Marilynn, retired to Maine. They were drawn back when Warren decided he didn’t like the direction the company was going. He returned in 2012 as its chief executive officer.,“We love this company more (than retirement),” said Warren. “My wife tells me, ‘just be happy you don’t have to play golf’. That’s an empty life for me.”

Now Warren, celebrating his 80th birthday, is revived and ready to keep the company moving forward.

The company is currently working on launching a relationship site to help people make friends.

“There’s a lot of loneliness,” said Warren. “Forty percent of Americans don’t have a close confidant. We want to start matching friends.”